A writer can help your business make the right first impression and keep consumers engaged through the sales cycle.
If you want your business to flourish, then hire a writer. This may seem like a bold statement in the age of technology. After all, coding and programming skills are in great demand, while writers are rumoured to be begging for work and starving.
Lists of today’s most in-demand jobs are populated with software engineers, data analysts and account managers. Clearly, businesses are looking to build technology bridges to consumers, analyze their data and then sell to them. Good writers can boost all these functions.
If you’re in business, it’s a given that you have a website. Your web designer may have created a visually pleasing site that helps funnel visitors toward a sale. Your site may have clean code, an efficient system for processing payments and perhaps even artificial intelligence to enhance the customer experience. It might be collecting and analyzing data, which your data scientists can then use to drive your next advertising campaign.
But what does a potential customer see? They see your landing page. They see your blog. They see your educational video. They see content.
Whether it be writing, video or voice, it’s content that informs, engages and moves prospects through the sales cycle to an inbound sales rep or directly to a sale. Good content is built upon good writing. If you hire professionals for all the other important tasks in building a website, why then leave content writing to the summer intern?
There are almost 185 million active websites in the world. Getting attention is so important and so potentially difficult that there are professionals dedicated solely to search engine optimization (SEO). And they’ll suggest one of the most important things you can do is provide quality content on your site.
Google processes about 90 per cent of global internet searches, so it’s in your best interest to have your site rank well — and, among other things, Google’s algorithm values high-quality content.
Although good content can help with SEO, some argue that content marketing is dead. A study by Time Inc., however, found that 90 per cent of respondents “like the idea of custom content as a way for brands to engage with them.”
But when Havas Group surveyed more than 300,000 people, the global communications firm concluded that “content delivered by brands is underperforming to such an extent that it’s having little impact on business results or people’s lives. 84% of people expect brands to produce content. Yet 60% of all content created by brands is poor, irrelevant or fails to deliver.”
In other words, consumers want well-written content, but firms are not providing it.
The first interaction with an organization used to be a telephone conversation or a face-to-face meeting. Receptionists and salespeople were the face of the firm and began the sales process. They adhered to dress codes and standards of contact to make a good first impression. Now, consumers start their relationships with firms online. The care that went into developing frontline representatives needs to now be directed at content. It is often responsible for the first impression and it needs to be well crafted and integrated into the sales cycle.
I don’t advocate a full inbound approach to sales (another blog), but it’s now a part of most sales strategies — and the writing being used to drive it deserves attention. Every electronic communication from your firm, including email, should be well-crafted, without exception.
Don’t get the new sales manager to cram some writing into her weekend. Hire a good writer (or two) and rise above the crowd.
Image: iStock.com/tolgart
Douglas Warren is a co-founder of Walmer Road Writing. He’s a corporate writer with expert knowledge of financial markets, economics, insurance and commercial real estate.